In recent years, it has become possible to detect position information with car navigation systems, PDAs or cellular phones by utilizing, for example, antennas for global positioning systems (GPSs) or cellular phone networks. Accordingly, various services have been provided by utilizing this position detection function.
The car navigation systems offer a service of displaying information on the neighborhood of a user's vehicle captured with a GPS through FM multiplex telecasting or light beacons. With respect to the cellular phones, offered are services such as “i-area” provided by NTT DoCoMo, Inc. or “J-SKY” provided by J-PHONE Co., Ltd. Each of the services pinpoints the area where a user of a cellular phone is located within the range from several hundreds meters to several kilometers and provides the user with event information or service information regarding this area.
In addition, terminals which are cellular phones including GPS units have been put on the market, so that the position can be detected with an error of about several meters in an area where the precision is high. Various services regarding such position information are expected to become available in the future.
Problems to be Solved
Various services now available identify the current position of (an information terminal used by) a user and provide the user with information regarding the current position. It is expected in the future that there arises the need for provision of information regarding a place for which the user is heading as well as information regarding the current position of the user.
In systems such as currently-used car navigation systems, a user can specify a destination or a route clearly, so that a mechanism for providing the user with information regarding the specified destination or route can be easily attained. However, in fact, the operation of searching for a destination or a route is complicated. In addition, it is considered that if such operation performed by the driver during the drive will cause momentary lapses of attention and thus obstruct careful driving.
In view of this, achievement of such a technology that enables provision of information regarding a destination of a user accurately without special operation by the user will allow the user to drive more comfortably and safely than now.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to enable accurate provision of information regarding the destination of the user without requiring the user to perform complicated operation.